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Virgin Mobile USA : Virgin Mobile USA Adds "Connect" to Prepaid Handsets

^{Published on 2009-04-01 06:33:39, Last Modified on 2009-11-03 09:09:48 - Market Wire}
 

WARREN, NJ--(Marketwire - April 1, 2009) - Leveraging last year's acquisition of Helio, Virgin Mobile USA (NYSE: [ VM ]) will be launching Virgin Mobile "Connect" and Opera Mini 4.2 later this month, giving its more than five million prepaid customers more ways to optimize their mobile experience. Customers can take advantage of these new included services by signing up for any monthly or prepaid data pack plan ranging from $5 for 5MB of data on prepaid plans to $10 for 50 MB of data on a monthly plan.

"We're excited to offer our customers what we think is one of the richest set of data offerings in prepaid wireless service. Leveraging the social networking investments from our postpaid business, and working with tremendous partners such as Opera Mini, our customers can now stay connected like never before," said Doug Britt, Vice President, Mobile Data Services for Virgin Mobile USA.

Virgin Mobile Connect

"Connect," a social networking dashboard, was originally launched on Virgin Mobile USA postpaid devices in November 2008. Connect will be available to those Virgin Mobile USA's prepaid customers on many devices including the Shuttle, Jax or X-tc handsets. Since Connect launched in November, about 30% of customers using Helio devices have logged on to Connect to stay in touch with their social networks.

The Connect interface allows customers to connect directly to Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and YouTube. Now instead of having to log in and out of one social networking site in order to access another, customers use Connect to conveniently aggregate status updates, invitations and requests, new photos and videos, comments, messages and more, all in one place, free of charge. Virgin Mobile USA customers can also use Connect's integrated standard RSS reader to stay up-to-date with their favorite news sites, blogs and e-zines.

Opera Mini 4.2

Opera Mini will enable Virgin Mobile USA prepaid customers to enhance their web mobile browsing experience. Opera Mini 4.2 provides a richer mobile Internet access experience using Opera Software's data compression technology while providing a desktop-like browser experience. Additional features included in the Opera Mini 4.2 release include:

 -- Personalization through customized skins -- Optional bookmark synching with a personal computer or another mobile device with installation of the Opera browser product -- Notes and speed dial available from Opera Broswer -- Ability to view pages in landscape mode on select devices -- Scrolling short cuts 

Opera Mini 4.2 will be available on most Virgin Mobile USA prepaid handsets including Slash, Shuttle, Arc and select postpaid handsets including the Ocean 2. Opera Mini has more than 20 million users and has more than 7.5 billion page views per month.

Prepaid Data Packs:

These new applications are all free and included as part of any data pack plan. Virgin Mobile USA customers can sign up for a variety of optimized data packs depending on their usage:

 If They Are Pay As You Go Customers: $5 data pack = 5MB of data and unlimited access to VirginXL $10 data pack = 20MB of data and unlimited access to VirginXL $20 data pack = 50MB of data and unlimited access to Virgin XL For Those On Monthly Plans Without Annual Contracts: $5 data pack = 20MB data and unlimited access to VirginXL $10 data pack = 50MB of data and unlimited access to VirginXL 

About Virgin Mobile USA, Inc.

Virgin Mobile USA, Inc., through its operating company Virgin Mobile USA, L.P., offers millions of customers control, flexibility and choice through Virgin Mobile's Plans Without Annual Contracts and postpaid offerings through Helio By Virgin Mobile, with national coverage for both powered by the Sprint PCS network.

Virgin Mobile USA is known for its award-winning customer service, with 90% of its own customers reporting satisfaction. Virgin Mobile USA allows customers to earn free minutes in exchange for viewing advertising content online through the innovative Sugar Mama program. Virgin Mobile USA's full slate of smart, stylish and affordable handsets are available at approximately 40,000 top retailers nationwide and online at [ http://www.virginmobileusa.com/ ], with Top-Up cards available at more than 140,000 locations. Advanced postpaid devices like the Ocean 2 and unlimited All-in voice plans are now also part of Virgin Mobile USA's diverse offerings.